Stay
by bLEWfire
Summary: Crisis on Infinite Earths looms ever closer, and Barry is fighting hard to be strong for the rest of his team. But his fear is catching up with him in a particularly embarrassing way. Iris is there to remind him that she loves him... even in wet pajamas. (Look there just weren't any stories about The Flash that touched on this idea and I wanted one so I wrote it.)


**Author's Note: It's been a hot minute since I've written any fanfiction at all, but basically I wanted there to be a story like this about The Flash and there wasn't so ... I wrote one. Deals with bedwetting and accompanying embarrassment, also massive existential angst and impending death. If you don't like it, don't read. If you do like it, please tell me! Comments feed the muse. No beta, all errors mine. **

* * *

_He's running as hard as he can. He wonders briefly how fast he's going. Has he clocked a new top speed? But he can't dwell on the thought. He's a man out of time. Behind him, a mass of anti-matter, spreading, growing, coming for him. Ahead of him, Iris, his lightning rod, tears streaming down her face, arms outstretched as if she still believes he will reach her. He has never wanted something so much. Never wanted so badly to fall into her arms, be held, be safe. Stay. "Iris!" He shouts, trying desperately to get to her. But already he can feel it: the anti-matter catching up. He's starting to unravel. It sears like hot flame, and he screams. He doesn't want to go. "Iris!" He doesn't want to go. But he's going, going…_

"**Barry!"**

A warm, familiar voice jolts him awake but the nightmare still has its grip on him. The image of the last thing he'll ever see, the feeling of ceasing to exist, and he can't breathe, he can't get the breath into his lungs, and he's dying, dying all over again.

"**Breathe, Barry, breathe."**

Says the warm voice and he holds onto it like it's a lifeline, because it is. She is. She brings him out of the darkness of his fear, of his panic, his desperation. Slowly the fear fades as she repeats the words over and over.

"Breathe, Barry, breathe."

Finally, he's calm enough to take a full breath and before the exhale she says, "let's get cleaned up."

He must have looked at her puzzled then, because she offers, with heartbreaking, humiliating gentleness, "The bed, Barry."

That's when he realizes. The coldness he feels all around him is more than just sweat. The unholy scent assaulting his nose is urine. Barry Allen, fastest man alive, 31 years old, has wet the bed.

For a moment the shame threatens to drown him. The remnants of his terror with it. But he feels his fix-it mode slide into place. Bearing his teeth against his own embarrassment he says, "Iris, God, I'm so sorry. You shower. I'll do the sheets and then shower down at STAR Labs and be back before you miss me… I'm sorry."

It's the last "I'm sorry"—quieter, tentative, his voice wavering on the word—that really breaks Iris' heart. "I can stay. I can help." She offers. He doesn't look at her. Doesn't say her name again. He only offers one word, a broken whisper, and she knows she must oblige. "Please" he says.

When she steps out of the shower ten minutes later, she finds the bed freshly made with new sheets, the sound of the washer going across the apartment and not a sign of Barry anywhere.

She debates for a second. Perhaps he'd prefer some time alone. But she's known Barry forever, and she's knows better. She knows where to find him too.

He speaks when he hears her slide the door open and step out onto the balcony. He's huddled in a shadowed corner, hair still wet from his own shower, arms loosely around his knees.

"How'd you know where to find me?" He asks in a voice so quiet and scared and embarrassed It hurts to hear.

"Lucky guess," She says at first. But he nearly looks at her then and she knows he needs more.

"The first time you wet the bed after you came to live with us, you hid. I looked for you everywhere. And my dad finally found you, huddled up on the porch. I just figured I'd start from there this time."

She can feel the shame rolling off Barry like actual heat. He cringes when she says the words "wet the bed." She'd been there with him, more than once all those years ago, but never said the words.

"Barry, it's okay." She offers. And then he shakes his head furiously, a few renegade tears dripping unbidden as he pulls his hand across his eyes.

"No it's not. I'm the Flash. In less than 2 months I'm supposed to save you, the universe, and I can't even keep the bed—I can't go the night without"—but he chokes, the words unspoken, lodged like a bullet in his chest.

He still won't look at her.

"Barry, do you remember that Christmas party a couple of years ago when we told embarrassing stories?" She asks, hopefully. He groans, and, to her horror, has to furiously rub his eyes again.

"Yeah. Of course I remember. How could I forget?" He answers miserably. She presses on.

"Do you remember what I said to you that night?"

He nods, still afraid to look at her, the memory playing out in his mind.

* * *

_They've just put away another bad guy, another threat gone, just in time for the holidays. Joe and Cecile invite the whole gang back to their place and, riding the high of their most recent win, everyone agrees._

_It's a perfect night. Eggnog and wine and a fire and a sparkling tree and the kind of laughter than only comes after you thought you might never laugh again. The hero life was like that._

_Then someone—was it Cisco?—suggested they swap embarrassing stories. Caitlin had been quick to offer up a story about a Cisco experiment gone wrong, in which he'd begun to itch so bad he'd stripped stark naked in the middle of STAR labs._

_Then a photo had caught Barry's eye from the bookshelf. Before he could stop himself, he was showing it around, telling everyone about the time in 9th grade when Iris had attempted to give herself a haircut and it had gone… badly._

_She looked more shocked and betrayed than he'd expected as the photo was passed around, and he was about to apologize when she suddenly blurted out, "Barry wet the bed until he was 11."_

_It shouldn't have been a big deal. It was years ago. Doesn't every kid wet the bed at some point? So he's surprised by the wave and shame and embarrassment that swells up in him. It must have shown on his face, because as soon as the words left her mouth, Iris looked regretful. Cisco and Caitlin smirked despite themselves. He felt his cheeks burn and before he could stop himself he was saying, "That's not true! I hadn't! And then I did for awhile after my mom died, and then it never happened again."_

_He thought he'd settled it. Iris looked thoroughly cowed and the others seemed ready to forget it entirely given the new context of his life's most tragic moment. Until he caught Joe's eye, right as Joe was saying "mmmmm" and shaking his head._

_For a moment, Barry was puzzled, and then horror sunk into the bottom of his gut like a stone._

_"Not never." Joe said, quirking an eyebrow._

_Barry's own eyebrows arched in alarm._

_"Joe. No. Joe don't."_

_But Iris' curiosity was piqued. "Don't what? Dad, what do you know?"_

_Joe offered Barry a semi-apologetic smile._

_"Remember that night junior year that Barry dragged you to that haunted house?" He asked Iris._

_"Joooooeeeee." Barry begged, to no avail._

_"Of course I do. I got so scared I made us leave early and called you to pick us up and Barry made fun of me the whole way home."_

_'Well, I think it's fair to say that Barry was at least scared as you were."_

_At this point, Barry groaned from behind his hands, which were covering his fully flushed face. Cisco and Caitlin exchanged knowing glances._

_"Come on, Joe," Barry pleaded one last time. But it was too late._

_"I found him that night in the laundry room, trying to shove in his wet sheets and pajamas, every light between his bedroom and the laundry room turned on. He tried to say something about spilled coke, as if I hadn't seen him in exactly that state a dozen times before, but he was shaking so hard from whatever nightmare he'd had that he couldn't get the laundry going without help. I had to sit with him until he fell asleep, just like when he first moved in. As I recall, he kept a light on his room for weeks after that."_

_"Actually, he still keeps the bathroom light on with the door cracked." Iris offers with a smirk._

_"Oh my God," Barry groans, before turning his eyes, cheeks still crimson, on Joe._

_"You promised you'd never tell her." He says, betrayed and embarrassed, and Joe almost feels bad before remembering the loving company they're in._

_"I only promised because I knew you were afraid she'd never like you if she knew you wet the bed at 16, and I think you don't really have to worry about that anymore, Barr,"_

_Barry's face was still flushed. He tried to take it lightly and brush it off. After all, they'd all shared embarrassing moments with each other. But he worried the skin around his thumb nervously. He heard Iris say, "Barry Allen." several times until he finally dared to look at her._

_There was nothing in her eyes that Christmas night except the deepest love he'd ever known, the love that had been with him through so much._

_"Barry, I love you. And I will love you forever. Even in wet pajamas."_

_He's blushed bright red again at that, even as he smiled despite himself. And Cisco had groaned and insisted that they change the topic. So the party had continued…_

* * *

"Do you remember what I said?" Iris asked again.

He nodded and she said, "Say it." and he paused, as if stumbling over the worlds, but then he shook his head and choked out a quiet, "I can't."

She wanted to push him, but she knew he'd gone as far as he could. So she took his chin in her hands and lifted his head to face her and he cautiously, face still flushed, eyes glassy and wet. Iris said, "I told you I love you. And I will love you forever… Even in wet pajamas."

He cringed at this last part and tried to turn away but she held firm. "Talk to me, Barry."

And she saw it. The exact moment when his resolve crumbled completely and he let her in. No shame in his face now, just terror and deep crushing anguish. "I'm scared, Iris. I'm trying to be strong for everyone else but I… I don't want to die. I don't want to die!" And then he's crying hard, his breath coming in broken gasps, and he leans hard into her, clutching on for dear life because she's his lifeline, his lightning rod, and he doesn't want to go, but he's going.

"I don't want to go. I don't want to go," he says, voice trembling, over and over between sobs. And Iris holds him tightly in her arms, stroking his hair gently, her own tears falling soundlessly to mingle with his. She listens to him cry and wishes for all the world that Barry wasn't the fastest man alive, wasn't a god of speed, wishes that for once, one of them had the power to slow everything down, to stop time forever. Because she knows as well as Barry does what's coming and it's coming too fast, too fast, too fast.

And so she whispers over and over, gently in his ear, "I will love you forever, I will love you forever."

But her heart is screaming the words she can't say, the desperate wish she knows no one has the power to grant.

_Stay, Barry, stay._


End file.
